Rise Above
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: She asks and he delivers, a lesson in Gallifreyan biology and a look at what could have, should have been. Ninth Doctor and Rose. One shot.


**A/N: 'Nother one shot. Reviews are loved.**

**Rise Above**

_Its best if you keep your eyes closed during this, he said. It helps with the imagery._

She couldn't quite believe it all, but his hand took hold of hers and led it very gently to the beginning.

_Starting point,_ she was told. _Hair. Perfectly normal, you see, right down to the possibility of balding later on— which I would appreciate it if we didn't talk about— which, incidentally, also indicates vanities and egos on some issues which match the "normal human male" standard. We'll talk more about that later. Moving on._

Her fingers were directed downwards, and she didn't have a chance to fulfill the itch to scrub her hand across his head, feel the fine clean lines of his skull, try and mess up his unmessable hair. He always kept it so short; she thought perhaps he would look rather silly with longer hair. Long and sort of floppy. She grinned.

_Eyes closed and stop laughin' at me, Rose Tyler._

_You don't know what I'm laughin' at!_

_I know what you get up to in that human brain of yours._

Did he?

Face, he said, and she felt along the wrinkles on his forehead, deep as cornrows, and— yes— his eyebrows were raised. Surprise or amusement? Amusement, she thought, as she traced slowly down the bridge of his long and aristocratic nose, smoothed timidly over the dip above his upper lip, and then down to his mouth itself, which was definitely smiling. His lips were soft and chapped both, warmer than the rest of his skin had been so far. She felt along one and then along the other, drifting her fingertips in a faint brush on them; his hand around her wrist had gone slack and she gave in to the temptation to peek; she saw, as she had half expected, his eyes closed as he leant slightly into her touch. She shut her eyes again before he could catch her.

He was breathing rapidly, and shallowly.

Her fingers drifted down.

Rounded the soft angle of his chin, tilted it up slightly to slip her fingers down the line of his throat, jarring slightly but carefully over his Adam's apple.

_Explain that one to me._

_As far as I can tell, that bulge is strictly there to prove the existence of the Creator's sense of humour._

_Which bulge?_

_Wha—_

_Oh. That bulge._

Her fingers moved on. Yes. They were both smirking now; she could feel the breath of the chuckle he let out. Amused and confused, both, she could tell by the sound of it. His breath was warmer than his skin. With her eyes closed she had only her instincts to go by, and they were getting a bit scrambled with his proximity, with his sudden permission for her to touch him. Though— though, it wasn't as though she hadn't asked.

Or demanded.

Collar bones. Typically, oddly enough, her favourite part of the human body. She dipped her fingers in the hollows just above them, rubbed at the skin, and felt his knee brush her leg as he buckled, very slightly.

_Everything connects._

_So I feel._

He swallowed audibly and started again.

_Everything connects in a fairly typical manner. The differences aren't in the absence of things, but the presence of what isn't what you would call normal._

_Two hearts, _she offered to show that she understood, and skated her fingers carefully down his chest, raising her other hand so she could put her palms flat on the skin, one above each heart, revelling in the beat. _You could dance to it._

_I have_, he said, but so quietly that she thought she only heard it in her mind. She pressed her palms closer to his skin, and tried to think of a way to thank him for taking off his shirt that didn't sound just wrong. Because she wanted to thank him. She wanted to thank him for everything, for trying to explain three times, giving up, rubbing a hand over his face and then finally, exasperated, offering to demonstrate.

Two hearts. Two beats. A near constant throb, a never-ending pound.

_They go rather quickly, don't they?_

He ignored that comment.

_Think of a bird,_ he said. _A sparrow. Flying high in the air, wings pumping to keep it aloft, then floating on a breeze. Against all reason, really, but totally in tune with natural laws._

She nodded, and felt absently for chest hair. There was a slight hitch in his breath.

_The sparrow begins to change. You can see the feathers drift up and away, the bird flies on clad only in skin. The skin lifts. You see the muscles on the bird as it continues on its way. The muscles, all the meat, disappears, and there's an empty skeleton winging its way over an ocean. That is just as logical as the actual logic of flying. You see?_

She shrugged a little, and let her fingers slide down his belly: he was built well, not slight, it was his tallness that gave him that look of ungainly awkwardness, that look of being thin as a willow wand and equally as pliable. Standing close to him now, with her hands on his torso, she knew she couldn't have budged him by force if she tried a million years. No wind could blow this man down.

_The basic skeleton remains the same, _he went on, apparently ignoring the almost continental drift of her fingers. In fact his hand has left her wrist and joined its fellow hovering vaguely around her waist; she felt them close in, so light that they touched only the fabric of her shirt, no warmth seeping through to her skin. _You see a heart join the first in the bird's chest cavity, they're overlaid with layers of muscle. More than went away; extra layers. Odd muscles, here and there, lending the capacity of— odd actions._

She could hear the smile in his voice, and an answering one tugged at the corners of her mouth.

_The bird thickens up, bulks up, regains all the semblance of itself. Enclosed in the trappings of skin and feathers, though, are the differences. The things that are there, and the things that weren't there before. A dragon, for instance, is a bird of sorts. It can fly. It can have feathers. It can even, if encouraged correctly, sing._

She skimmed the air above his belly button; she gained the warmth of his hands as they tightened at her waist, and smiled in triumph even though she knew he could see it; he had his eyes open.

_What's involved, then, in this correct encouragement?_

She didn't think he was breathing at all, now.

_You're the sparrow, Rose. You tell me._

She didn't have the words.

_I don't have the words,_ she mumbled to him, and felt him twitch. _Beneath the skin, then— beneath your skin. All those infinite extra layers, tensed and coiled and ready for odd actions. Are these actions required often, then? _She put her hands on his arms, felt the muscle of them, traced a vein on the softer skin at his inner elbow.

_Its good to be prepared for emergencies. I've not seen everything yet; never know when life's gonna throw a wrench at you. _

_Or a sonic screwdriver._

_Or a piano, for that matter. Had that happen once. Great big piano dropped on top of me. Didn't like it. _Once again she can hear his grin, and he's right about her eyes being closed for the imagery: she can picture that grin so clearly, that huge and exuberant smile that never goes only halfway to boyish glee. And its not because she sees that grin in her sleep almost every night; or rather, its not _strictly_ because of that.

_When you bleed— _

_Red and copious, 'specially if I nick meself shaving in the morning._

_Five o'clock shadow?_

_At least twice a day._

_Ticklish?_

_That's for me to know and you to hopefully never find out for sure._

_Do you dream? _she asked softly, and when his answer is filled with pain she can picture the contortion of his face perfectly.

_Far too much._

She parted her lips, breathed in and breathed out, and replaced her hands on his stomach again.

_Moving on?_

His voice was now slightly cold and very clinical; she thought if she could see his face that she would be able to discern the exact reason for this, but knowing that his eyes would be trained on her now, she didn't risk another glance.

_Moving on._

He'd left his trousers on; again, she wanted to thank him. He must have been staring right at her when she blushed a deep tomato red, unmistakeable, and she'd only reached the zip. But as she wasn't likely to get a chance to satisfy her curiousity at any other point—

She bit her lip and breathed in deep, and with a great air of nonchalance skated her fingers in an x-ed out square on the fabric of his jeans just below the zip. He'd already gone tense, and she didn't need to see his face to know why. He'd prepared. He didn't move. He breathed in slow deep regular breaths, the normalcy of which was entirely faked.

_All present and correct?_ She made her voice light.

_Definitely present_, he said. _Possibly correct._

_Nothing special, then?_

_I am—_ the Doctor started, and then stopped in some confusion. Rose grinned in the general direction of his trousers, since that was where she happened to be looking at the time; the trousers, as far as she could tell, offered no response. He was caught between his usual protestation that he was far above average, far more brilliant than anyone else, far more impressive than the most impressive thing ever— and the knowledge that this usual protestation, in these circumstances, would probably be taken the wrong way. A bit. With her hands just there, however, he wasn't sure which way the wrong way was, at the moment. Perhaps there wasn't any real wrong way. They were stranded together in a place of waylessness, Rose's fingers suddenly deciding to bypass any further exploration of his crotch.

He wondered if there was any way he could thank her for that that wouldn't sound just wrong.

_I'm sure you take your girls to heaven and back_, her very stupid mouth decided to say without waiting for permission from her brain, albeit in a very polite tone of voice, as though it were only proper to make some nod to the Doctor's sexual prowess, and very quickly she turned her attention to his knees.

_Not double-jointed, are you?_

_Not there, no,_ he said, but he sounded distracted. She stifled a laugh.

Knees, calves, ankles, feet. She was bent all the way over, being unwilling to get to her own knees in order to feel him below the waist, because— well, because she would have felt silly. She felt silly now, straightening back up, her face still flaming.

His voice still cold and clinical, though somewhat rougher now.

_You see what I mean now. You see how the differences are beneath the skin, wrapped up in our— in my mind, and you, as a human, can't get at them. Its not that you're deficient— its not that there are parts of your mind barred off that you could use if you knew how to access them. Its simply that you don't have the capacity. Not that way._

_I understand,_ she said. _Can I open my eyes now— _

_Not just yet,_ he said, and she tilted her chin up in surprise, because his voice was so much closer of a sudden, and he was whispering in her ear.

_What I can do— and I'm sorry, Rose— what I can do is share._

His fingers on her temples were suddenly the most intimate touch she'd ever felt, and she opened her mouth to gasp in shock and felt him, very carefully, kiss her; felt him, with such caution, with such precision, take her lower lip into his mouth.

It wasn't the kiss that did it, though, and she wasn't thinking of it at all.

Her brain exploded with images of brightness and heat; images that were memories and yet not familiar, as he showed her all that was and all that could have been.

Their first meeting, he took her by the hand and told her to run, and as he pulled her into the elevator they had just enough time to look at each other, take each other in, before he had her against the wall and it turned out they had run to each other.

Platform Five, the first time, he'd saved her and as the sun was breaking through the window, promising a nice tan, he stood naked in front of her and blocked it out.

He'd sniped at her irritably for kissing Charles Dickens on the cheek, and for saying afterwards that she thought goatees were sexy, sort of, even though he knew and she knew that she'd only said it to make him irritated, and he knew and she knew that it had worked. With very little care and very little precision he had yanked at the laces of her fancy, time-appropriate dress, and she had laughed as he cursed each knot and tie, and giggled shamelessly when he finally gave up and just wrapped her skirts around her neck, out of the way, until he was done.

The beginning of the ending of the world, as aliens crash landed on Earth— or had they?— he teased her mercilessly across the table, and hid his irritation at being made to dine with Jackie, hid his irritation at being made to do domestic, because when he offered her the chance to leave with him instead she had given him this look that he couldn't refuse, and that was the first indication that she had that he would do anything for her. It frightened her beyond reason, but not half as much as it frightened him.

Would he really risk the world to save her?

She hoped they never really had to find out.

There was dancing, and then there was _dancing_. They'd skirted admirably the question of Adam, the issue of Mickey, and the intrusion of Jack. Locks had been introduced to the TARDIS doors. The Doctor had installed a bathtub with water jets— the provocative water jets, he seemed to call them, and he went and sulked in that bath anytime she complained of a headache. Which was not often. But did happen sometimes; because nothing is perfect, and lack of perfection was absolutely fantastic.

He kept saving the world. Saving all worlds. Saving all worlds and then coming back to her, drenched in sweat and triumph and sometimes blood and tears; getting turned on every time they got captured and complaining she did it purposefully when there was really no time for a shag between fights, not even a quick one with most of their clothes still on. She complained of corruption. He delighted in corrupting her. She'd learned before now every difference there was between the biology of a human and that of a Gallifreyan, and he had never ever had to explain; hadn't even tried; had only demonstrated; and none of it was real, but it could have been.

All this in the time it took to kiss her; and he took his own sweet time.

When he drew back at last and looked at her with hooded hungry eyes, she realized it had happened, and realized in the same instant that she'd been too caught up in the _might have beens _to really even notice the _yes, here, now_. She made an inarticulate noise in the back of her throat and moved to follow him, but he diverted his lips to her forehead and bussed her there, not looking back at her till he could manage a smile that at least approximated his normal cheerful grin, though his gaze was still heated and weighty.

_And that's it_, he said. _That's the difference between humans and Gallifreyans. The real one: its not all down to biology. I can see everything, all that is and all that was and all that could have, should have been. Never mind being 900 years old, Rose, I've lived every turn my path could have taken._

She pouted before she could stop herself.

_That's not fair._

_No, its not,_ he agreed. _But life isn't fair. It just is._

She leant up towards him but he avoided her, tracing his fingers down her neck so it wasn't a total rejection.

_And that's why I'm sorry_, he told her seriously. _Because we can't have what could have been. We can only have what is._

Her eyes met his.

There was a long moment of silence, and then she drew a deep and shuddery breath.

_I— I don't know if I can cope with that, Doctor._

_Oh, Rose,_ he said, with a gentle smile, and tugged at her hair, trapping it between his long fingers. _Learn_.


End file.
